In this 8th edition of Tarot Letters, I pulled some existential (to me) questions from the mail bag, and cracked open my newest deck — the Hayworth Tarot.
If you’ve submitted a question and I haven’t gotten to it yet, it may yet come up in a future edition. But in the mean time messages are everywhere (maybe some in the cards here that respond to other questions), and there are voices from inside you, your past, your different selves, and outside of you that call to you more clearly than I can. I hope you’re listening, I hope you find use and strength from what you hear. Sending love to all of you.
Full image descriptions for the cards at the very end of this newsletter. You can send me more questions at this open form here. I most recently wrote about the different ways tarot has shown up in my life: in connecting to others, in creative expression, in filling in the space where words don’t come. If you’ve been enjoying the newsletter and would like to support the work, here’s my tip jar 💌
Cards are being read left to right
How to find strength and joy in destruction? I know what needs doing and yet my heart is a mess.
Sometimes we wait to have the “right” feelings before we act, as a way to postpone what has to come from knowing what needs doing. Strength and joy await you, as they have emerged for you and with you in the past, as they already exist in other things inside you and in your life. Sometimes you have to build it because it is not there, sometimes you have to stop waiting for it to come and use something else instead. Sometimes it’s what awaits you on the other side of destruction. I am so moved and touched by the gentle and firm hold this coral creature in the sea has on itself. I am so moved by all the ecosystems and landscapes it contains and carries. The World shows up to remind you that you are capable of imagining, building and living a much much much much bigger life. Bigger than the biggest you can conceive of right now. How can you tap into that faith? Or conversely, how can you work with that skepticism?
If it needs to be destroyed, often times it is already crumbling and weakened. Where does your trust lie right now? In yourself and your resilience? In the definitiveness of death, and time passing? In the love of the people around you? In your unerring search for truth? Or is trust not part of the equation? Find it and whatever else you haven’t found in the mess of your heart. Hold it like a treasured pebble. Forget joy for now, joy is around, joy will be had, joy is not a finite resource. Maybe what’s more important is opening your eyes.
How do I motivate for a future that I can’t seem to see clearly? As we continue to exist in the unknown, what ways can I change my thought around being unmotivated? I am the last to complain about not being productive, but I’m concerned that I am unable to really set intentions and those are helpful with guiding my heart and mind.
You are living in a nightmare. Many of us are. Nightmares are where terror lives in the mundane, the threats of danger and harm like sharpened knife points pinning us in place, setting our hearts and legs racing, putting our minds and bodies at war with each other. You know how people sometimes get out of nightmares by accessing lucidity in sleep and telling themselves This is a nightmare? There are not many choices in this current moment to do with what we cannot know, but there is always a little space to move and maneuver.
Nine of Swords is often about the demons in our minds, the anxiety of living with them and slaying them, if that is what’s called for. So, be affirmed that it is perfectly understandable you are unmotivated. Secondly, I notice here the feet do not have a sword pointing at them, and it made me imagine this figure swinging forward and away from the threatening knife points, shifting into The Hanged Man position to face a hopefully open sky. Which is to say an active suspension and distancing from the current state of things to reflect and see things from a different perspective. Things have changed and we may never recover some of the things we’ve lost. Have you really sat with that, and felt all your feelings about it?
Can your intentions have shorter life spans? For this coming week / month, I aim to accomplish 10% progress on a bigger project? Can your intentions be internal? Where am I most frustrated, what new approaches haven’t I tried in those areas, what new knowledge do I need to get to move myself forward? Can your intentions be external? Who can help me right now? Who can I reach out to? Can your intentions be kinder to your own struggle? My plans have been derailed and suspended. I am grieving my old expectations and relearning entirely about what being okay means for me. You are unmotivated for many reasons. Sometimes we have to stay in the nightmare, and try and have faith that it will change or end, but until then, this is what we have to live with. I read this article recently that seems to echo what you brought up with your question, and what many of us are struggling with right now, maybe it could help too. Best of luck, sending good energy to you.
How do we pace ourselves in a world that requires us to respond and act quickly?
I love how this question to me is in dialogue with the previous question. And if we’re talking about impulsivity, or the feeling of being obliged to jump when someone else says so, it’s fitting that Wands showed up. Wands, connected to the element of fire, to our passions and the energy that gets us moving, and to our energetic boundaries. And the King has an understanding of the element that makes them equals. Know our own fire, know the nature of the fires we encounter. What really are the requirements here? Does a situation seem like it’s asking for a solution, or do we feel that way because we are uncomfortable with brokenness and the time it takes to consider comprehensive, holistic repair? Are we better at marathons, or quick sprints? Do we need lots of space to think before we execute, or do we need partners to run beside us as we forge new paths? If something tells us “Act in [timeframe] or [consequences]” what if we consider that the consequences are the cost to pay, not our own wellbeing, our own boundaries, our own capacity to give and engage? What if we consider that the consequences come from a series of actions taken and not taken long before we arrived on the scene? This world we live in have many systems in place that do not serve our best interests, and extract costs whether we want to pay them or not (and often extracting costs from those of us least equipped to pay). The King of Wands has to know what has to be paid, and whether it can be paid, what the costs are of overpaying, underpaying, or being in debt, and make decisions from a rootedness in that knowledge.
I am currently on a journey of learning how to believe in my voice without needing external validation. I am healing and trying to internalise that my flaws do not justify abandonment, bullying, abuse, and gaslighting. What I mean by ‘believe in my voice’ is not that my voice matters, but that it is reliable and to be trusted. How can I remind myself that I can trust my rationale and that my subconscious knows what it’s doing/picking up on?
Thanks you firstly for sharing your experiences with me; I’ve edited your question here for clarity and length but I’m honoured by your trust and grateful for the information you’ve shared about yourself. I got hung up on how you glossed over your voice mattering. Maybe you meant to say like, obviously that part you already know. And that mattering is not the same as being reliable and trustworthy. Sure, but what if your voice being what matters, your voice being the only thing that matters in this period of healing and learning, is the point?
I often read The Emperor as about having a deep, hard-earned understanding of your own power and authority, your obligations and what you’ve been charged to oversee (by yourself or by something else). And I often read The Emperor and the Kings of having worked their way towards having a store of whatever it is they need to distribute that it’s enough to sustain them and generate sustenance for others. You described in your letter situations where others did not give you what you need, where they set the terms with which you would get acceptance, love, affection, belonging and changed those terms without your input, and you were at the mercy of their whims. Even then, there was a voice that was ready to say what it is you needed and wanted, what you believe you deserve, what you believe is your right, and also a voice ready to say this is who I am, this is what I will not compromise on. Maybe the voice was waiting for the right language, waiting for a physical change, the right acoustic space, the right wavelength for your ears to tune into. So now you’ve got to get really really good at listening, and specifically listening to the sound, specificities, and music of your inner voice. Is it your voice, or someone else’s? Is it timid, scolding, loving, stammering, breathless? Does it get louder when you’re happy? How can you make it sing?
I got this card in a read recently, and I am still trying to figure out the visuals. The haziness in the centre of the card reminds me of heat shimmer, a desert. Death and bones on an empty field, the potential of life in the hovering approaching clouds, perhaps bearing rain. The big dramas of life and death happening without witnesses because they don’t need witnesses to happen, to be significant, to continue. You have lived. You are here now. You are building up sustenance for yourself to give yourself what you need. This process may not need witness but try witnessing yourself anyway and all the subtle details embedded in the big drama. Find new significance in what’s changing, what’s continuing, and in that watching and understanding, learn the shape and nature of your own power.
Image descriptions: The World - A blue skinned figure sits in the blue ocean, hugging their knees to their chest with their arms crossed. Cloud-like white puffs covers part of their body, and orange and light pink coral emerge around them and past their head almost like a coat. The sky behind them is light pink fading to light blue at the horizon, with streaks of white clouds. Nine of Swords - A suspended figure wearing black is standing upright mid-air with their arms and hands pulled back and nine straight swords pointing at different points of their back from head to calves. The background is an ombre light purple and pink. King of Wands - We see the top half of a figure rendered half in orange and black, their head turned to the side with their eyes deeply shadowed and a plume of wavy black emerging from their mouth upwards to a corner of the card and round the back of their head. The rest of the card is a sunset orange, and a rounded-top wand/staff stands in the bottom right corner. The Emperor - As described: an empty field dotted with the upturned body of a black bird, feet up, some unidentifiable smaller shadows and an animal skeleton further back in the midground. Gathering clouds pile up like a small mountain above the scene. The sky is purple and everything else is cast in pink, with a haziness that blurs some of the card emanating from the center.